


we are such stuff as dreams are made on

by erebones



Series: Waterdeep [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 15:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17531069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: In the middle of the night, Daisy and Boyun find themselves in need of a little homegrown comfort.





	we are such stuff as dreams are made on

**Author's Note:**

  * For [losebetter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/losebetter/gifts).



> Prompted on tumblr (things you said when i was crying) feat. my air genasi bard Daisy, and grey's lovely sad warlock Boyun, BFFs forever <3

Daisy hates being on watch. It’s cold and dark and lonely, and she can’t even play her pipes to keep herself company. Once in a while she gets up to pace down the tunnel in both directions, just to get the blood moving, but there’s never any whiff of trouble. By now she almost wishes there _was_ , just for something to do.

She’s on the back loop of one of these walkabouts when she hears a slight sniffle. She freezes, ears perking up as she tries to discern the exact pitch and tremor of it. The sniff comes again. Yep, that’s definitely Boyun.

Daisy creeps back to the circle of sleeping bodies, lit faintly by the glowing coals.

Ivek’s lump is the largest, rising and falling with every droning breath. She’s already had to kick him twice for snoring like a foghorn—at this rate her toes will be bruised by morning. The others are scattered around in various states of repose: Vic on her back with her hand laying slack on her recurve bow, Chee with her knees under her and her ass in the air, snoring silently into her pillow. And Boyun…

He’s sitting up at the far edge of the circle, bent over the enormous book in his lap. A few of the runes written on the pages are glowing, illuminating his face with a delicate butter-yellow glow and turning the tear-tracks on his face to liquid gold.

Daisy tiptoes over to him on silent feet and settles at his side. He doesn’t seem to notice, at first; his eyes glimmer over the pages and his lips move slightly, as if he’s reading to himself. The glow of the book reflects in his eyes, turning them the same strange dark-gold color as Chee’s when they catch the torchlight. He sniffles again, almost instinctively, and a single perfect teardrop falls to the page and shines there for a split second, diamond-like, before sinking into the page and disappearing.

“Boyun?” Daisy whispers. Boyun seems to jerk awake and he breaks his gaze on the book to stare at her. His eyes are dark and wide again, and Daisy breathes a little sigh of relief. “Hey. You okay?”

“Wh—yes, of course. I’m fine.” He wipes his cheeks surreptitiously. Daisy politely doesn’t mention the gathered tears that still shine in his beard.

“Doing a little light reading?”

“I… well, sort of.” He closes the book, though it takes effort—she still doesn’t know how he carries the thing around by himself, it’s _huge_ —and the wispy celestial glow is snuffed out. “I just… wake up from dreams, sometimes, and I need to… connect.”

Daisy nods as if she understands, even though she doesn’t. After a moment of hesitation, she puts her hand in the center of his back, waiting to be rebuffed. To her great relief, he sighs as if exhausted and leans hard into her side. “Was it bad dreams?” she whispers, keenly aware of the others still slumbering peacefully.

“Not… not as such.” He runs his hands over the cover of his tome, tracing the years—decades? Centuries?—of wear and tear beaten into the dark leather. For all its outward shabbiness, there’s still something regal about it. Still some kind of majesty that makes Daisy want to both inspect it more closely and lean as far away as possible from it at the same time. “They’re hard to remember… but they were good dreams this time, I think.”

An inkling starts to form in Daisy’s mind, like a spark of a melody coalescing out of nothing. “Y’know,” she says slowly, “not so much anymore, but when I was younger, I used to dream about my mum a lot. I don’t really remember her, but Da would tell me stories and I would dream all these… magical, wonderful things. And then I would wake up and she wasn’t there.” She swallows back the unexpected lump that rises to her throat. “Is it… kind of like that?”

Boyun’s tired smile is stifled as he tips his head against her shoulder. “A little, yeah. I’m sorry about your mum.”

“I’m sorry about your… patron?” Daisy tries. She gets a soft little chuff of a laugh out of it, so she counts it a success. Her arm sort of naturally drapes itself over Boyun’s shoulders and she rests her cheek on his head. He’s shaking a little bit, but she doesn’t press him. Just watches a few more droplets fall to her knee and absorb into the fabric, letting his strange and ancient grief wash over her like waves against a sturdy dyke.

Sort of instinctually, she feels a little tune building in the back of her throat. Her fingers tap against Boyun’s shoulder, whisper-soft, feeling out the chords one-handed as she hums softly, barely audible over the crackle of the fire. An old song, one she thinks she’s always known. A lullaby written into her bones.

Slowly, Boyun’s weight against her side becomes heavier and heavier. Daisy’s eyelids begin to droop. Her watch will be over soon, but she can stay up a little longer—long enough to sing Boyun back to a peaceful sleep.


End file.
